A deciduous shrub 6 to 8 ft high, of open, lax, rather straggling habit; young stems smooth, pale; bark peeling. Leaves 3⁄4 to 21⁄4 in. long, 1⁄4 to 3⁄4 in. wide; oblong or oval, tapered at both ends, margins wavy; glabrous, pale green; stalk very short; stipules pale, translucent, with two awl-shaped points, 1⁄2 in. or more long. Flowers 1⁄3 in. wide, white, with the anthers and ovary rose-coloured, produced in May and June in racemes 1 to 11⁄2 in. long, at the end of the previous year’s growth, when the young shoots are already several inches long; flower-stalk joined near the base. Bot. Mag., t. 7435.
Native of the Thian Shan range of mountains in Central Asia, where it was discovered by Krassnov; introduced to Kew from St Petersburg in 1880. It is the strongest growing and perhaps the most ornamental of cultivated species of Atraphaxis, and distinct from the others in the large leaves.